


Island

by ProgramasaurusRex



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 21:39:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7987141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProgramasaurusRex/pseuds/ProgramasaurusRex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gilfoyle confronts his friendships, his girlfriend, and his future</p>
            </blockquote>





	Island

Dinesh had been moping in the kitchen for two hours now, and Richard was getting worried.

"Someone should say something," Richard told Jared, although what he meant was, you should say something because you're good with feelings.

"Yes," Jared agreed. "But he's none too fond of me, so maybe you should do it, Richard. Your leadership ability is far higher than mine. I'm still something of an outsider here."

Richard blushed, "No, Jared, it's not like that ..."

"Nevertheless," said Jared, "I think it would mean more coming from you."

So Richard entered the kitchen.

"Dinesh?" he said, sitting down beside him. "You know Gilfoyle was just screwing with you, right? Obviously you have friends. We're your friends. Me, Gilfoyle, Jared, Erlich ... I mean ... who cares if you still talk to your old school friends on Facebook?"

Dinesh looked up. "As much as I appreciate your condescending little pep talk, Richard, you're my boss, and Gilfoyle's a complete asshole who is constantly going out of his way to screw me over. So, maybe I don't actually have friends?"

"Uh, wow," said Richard. "That's ... hurtful. I guess I thought we were ..."

"Richard," said Dinesh. "Leave me alone."   
___

 

Richard closed the door of the garage behind him.

"Gilfoyle," he said.

Gilfoyle looked up from the server rack.

"Look," said Richard, "I'm probably not going to say any of this very tactfully. But it needs to be said."

Gilfoyle sat down on the cot. "Okay."

"You crossed the line with Dinesh," said Richard. "I know you two have some kind of running ... thing, where you stick needles into each other for fun. But this isn't fun anymore. You humiliated him. He's not going to let you see that, but you did. You were supposed to send the beta to, like, relatives or people you've worked with; it wasn't supposed to become a popularity contest."

"Until Dinesh turned it into one by telling me I didn't have any friends," said Gilfoyle. "You think I should have let him get away with that kind of blatant hypocrisy?"

"Did you have to expose him in front of everyone?" said Richard. "Oh, wait, you did, because you take things out on other people when you're upset, and right now you're upset about your problems with your girlfriend. Which, by the way, you just told the whole house about in the middle of a speech about how you didn't trust anyone."

"It wasn't a secret," said Gilfoyle.

"Really? Because it's the kind of thing most people talk about with their friends," said Richard.

"You're my boss," said Gilfoyle.

"I can be a boss and a friend!" Richard burst out. "Sorry. Look, none of us really have any friends outside the house anymore; we've been working too hard to hold down a normal social life. But I thought we had, I don't know, an understanding."

"Richard, we're about to launch a product that, barring some unforeseen disaster, is going to make us all very rich," said Gilfoyle. "This whole Hacker Hostel summer camp communal living situation with the ninety hour work weeks was fun while it lasted, but our days here are numbered. What do you think is going to happen when we step off this demented arrested development tilt-a-whirl and move into real offices and apartments, like I don't know, thirty year old adults? Would any of us actually be friends if we weren't ten feet away from each other all day and night?"

"I don't know, maybe," said Richard. "That or we'll all be suing each other. I mean eventually we'll probably be busy getting married and having families and all that."

"Tara and I don't believe in marriage," said Gilfoyle.

Richard got quiet. "Are you going to stay with her?"

Gilfoyle rubbed his temple. "I don't know."

"I mean ... " said Richard. "Unless you've got a webcam in that god mode, you don't actually know she's been sleeping with other guys, do you?"

"I know the places she was going, and you don't go to them for tea and cookies."

"Unless she's knows you're spying, and she's testing you," said Richard. "That seems like kind of a Satanist thing to do, right?"

"You know fuck all about my religion or my girlfriend," Gilfoyle snapped, balling up his fists.

"You're right," said Richard. "So why don't you enlighten me?"

Gilfoyle looked at him.

"I mean, Satanists need somebody to talk to sometimes just like everybody else, right?"

Gilfoyle kneaded his knuckles. "Well, that's convincing. You're a regular mother hen, Richard."

"Do you need convincing?" said Richard. "You just said your personal life isn't a secret. You've been tense and spacey all week, and then you casually bring up your problems with Tara in conversation, apropos of nothing." Richard exhaled. "Honestly, Gilfoyle, I don't know how to play this game, and I'm tired of being insulted. If you want to talk, I'm here. If you don't, I'll leave you to Anton."

"Sit down," said Gilfoyle.

Richard did.

"She feels guilty telling me about all the guys she's fucking because I'm not fucking anyone," said Gilfoyle.

"Oh," said Richard. "So why aren't you ..."

"I don't know," said Gilfoyle. "I guess I can't bring myself to."

"Well," said Richard, "that seems like ... a normal human emotion. I know it isn't normal for Satanists, but isn't Satanism about, you know, doing what feels good?"

"Yeah," said Gilfoyle. "Hence the open relationship."

"But it sounds like being in an open relationship doesn't actually feel good to you," Richard pointed out.

Gilfoyle circled his left thumb with his right thumb and didn't answer for a minute.

"For most people," said Richard, "having one person feels good. I mean, when you're young, sometimes you do just want to have sex with everyone and not be tied down. I mean, I myself have no game, so I kind of skipped that phase, but from what I've heard," he said, cringing at the thought of giving romantic advice to someone who'd obviously had way more experience than him. "But then you get a little older and you want to settle down with one person. Not everyone, but most human beings. It's selfish, wanting someone all to yourself, but that doesn't make it not true. So ... look past your intellectual ideals for a minute. What do you want?"

"Well, Richard, my girlfriend's three thousand miles away, and she doesn't want to be monogamous. So it doesn't actually matter what I want."

"You don't have to stay with her," said Richard quietly.

"No one else wants me!" Gilfoyle roared.

Richard and Gilfoyle looked down.

"I'm thirty-two," said Gilfoyle. "I'm broke. I'm a code monkey. I have a literal neckbeard. I'm an unapologetic asshole. When little girls dream about growing up and getting married one day, I'm not exactly what they picture." He breathed in. "Tara was my first real girlfriend."

"Well, that sounds like an excellent reason to be unhappy for the rest of your life," said Richard.

"Shut up. I know," said Gilfoyle. "I'm pathetic. Thanks."

"At least you have someone," said Richard. "I had a great girlfriend for a whole six days before I fucked it up with my stupid neuroses."

"You mean Winnie?" said Gilfoyle. "I wouldn't worry about that. She wasn't for you."

"What makes you think that?" said Richard.

"Because," said Gilfoyle, "you're neurotic, and she doesn't like neurotic. Hence, she wasn't for you."

"That's one way of looking at it," said Richard.

"You can't change who you are Richard," said Gilfoyle softly. "You just have to find someone who doesn't mind."

"Well," said Richard, "same to you."

At first, Gilfoyle didn't really believe what Richard had said about Dinesh. Gilfoyle was constantly having little fights with Dinesh, but they never lasted long. And yet, something was different this time. Dinesh was refusing to speak to Gilfoyle about anything but work. Even at the best of times, Dinesh wasn't very affectionate, but this was a straight up cold shoulder situation. It surprised Gilfoyle how much it hurt to be ignored by his closest companion, especially knowing that it was his own fault. 

For the first two days, Gilfoyle pretended not to care. He fell back on his old strategy of trying to make Dinesh jealous by chatting to the others in front of him: talking weed with Erlich and video games with Richard, teasing Jared about his clothes, even being sociable to Bighead. 

"Hey," Gilfoyle said to the room one evening, "want to go down to the pet store and teach the Mynah birds racial slurs?"

"Oh, jeez," said Bighead. "I don't think so."

"I've got a lot of work to do," said Richard.

"Thanks but no thanks," said Jared.

"Yeah, what's wrong with you, Gilfoyle?" said Erlich. "Ironic racism was so five years ago."

"I'll come with you, Gilfoyle," said Jian Yang.

"Do you even know any racial slurs?" Erlich asked.

"Of course I do," said Jian Yang. "You ghost faces think you invented everything."

Gilfoyle felt Dinesh eavesdropping and knew he was hitting the mark, but Dinesh stuck to his guns and did not join in any conversations that contained Gilfoyle. And although they were all very busy trying to get ready for the launch of Pied Piper, Gilfoyle couldn't manage to lose himself in his work. He was too distracted.

In the end he did take Jian Yang to the pet store, mostly to distract himself.

"I know what you're doing," Jian Yang said as they were walking.

Gilfoyle tensed up. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," said Jian Yang. "It's not going to work."

"Why's that?" asked Gilfoyle.

And Jian Yang looked him dead in the eye. "People don't like being stepped on. You step on people too much, one day they figure out how to crawl out from under your feet."

Gilfoyle wasn't too sure what to say to Tara anymore, either. They normally chatted online sometimes, but Gilfoyle found himself giving her one word replies hours after she messaged him. He'd been excited to send her Dinesh's chat app, which allowed them to see each other more clearly, but now that just reminded him of Dinesh and how they weren't speaking either anymore. He wished he could talk to Tara about Dinesh, or Dinesh about Tara.

For the next couple days, Gilfoyle continued playing coy, waiting for Dinesh to make a move. But he was beginning to see that it wasn't coming. That just maybe, Dinesh was done with him for good. Then only did Gilfoyle start to consider taking the drastic approach of a sincere apology. It wasn't his style at all, and yet, if forced to choose between maintaining his reputation as an ice king and getting Dinesh to be his friend again, he realized with some astonishment that it was no contest.

And then one day, Jared pointed out to Dinesh and Gilfoyle that they were best friends.

Dinesh turned and walked out without saying anything. When he was gone, Jared turned to Gilfoyle with his annoying, infinitely wise look, and said, "You miss him."

Gilfoyle shrugged, but after nearly a week without his best friend, the unaffected scowl was starting to peel from his face like a strip of wallpaper.

"Make it right," Jared said, and left.

Gilfoyle waited until Jared was out of earshot.

"Anton," he whispered. "Help me out here."

The night of the launch, Gilfoyle found Dinesh by the pool.

"How long are you going to avoid me?" he asked Dinesh.

"Like you care," said Dinesh, voice flat and exhausted, as if Dinesh were being swallowed by a dementor.

"Is that what you want?" said Gilfoyle.

"What?"

"For me to care."

Dinesh turned away, his whole body drawn in protectively around itself.

"No, really, is it?" said Gilfoyle.

Dinesh sighed deeply, the humble sound destroying Gilfoyle's ears. "I get it, you think you're going to get me to admit I do and then laugh at me."

And then something occurred to Gilfoyle that should have occurred to him many years ago. 

He had become a bully. 

Gilfoyle had been bullied for years and years by those he called friends, harassed and pranked and ridiculed until his spirit broke, until his nerves split, until his dignity disintegrated, until he began to giggle nervously along with his tormentors because he thought it might defuse the intensity of the blows. Ironically, his life had been hell before he freed himself from his chains through the power of Satan. Discovering that book had changed his life. He had vowed never to suffer the role of victim again. And then he'd promptly turned around and done the same horrible things to someone else.

He walked around to face Dinesh. And his voice lowered, and softened, and sweetened, and wrapped itself around Dinesh like a blanket as Gilfoyle said, "No. I've had that done to me, too. It's a dirty trick."

"Yeah, well," said Dinesh, "dirty tricks are kind of your thing."

So it seemed there was no easy way out of this.

"I fucked up," said Gilfoyle.

"No, I fucked up," said Dinesh. "The worst part about this is I can't even blame it on you. I lied about having friends. Like a fucking child. Actually, even children are expected to have friends. I'm a remedial kindergarten student."

"I get why you lied," said Gilfoyle, settling himself onto a deck chair, eyes on Dinesh. 

"You didn't lie," said Dinesh. "You just admitted you didn't have any friends, and then miraculously didn't get any shit for it, because you're you."

"Yeah," said Gilfoyle, a sincerity radiating out of his face, "but just because I'm me and you're you doesn't mean I can't understand you. I understand shame, social difficulties, shame about social difficulties, insecurity, loneliness, living with a group of guys for years and having a hundred conversations about JJ Abrams and still feeling like you can never let your guard down in your own home ... what I'm trying to say is, I haven't been good to you, Dinesh. If you feel like you don't have a friend in the world, that's on me."

Dinesh looked back at him, speechless for a second. "Gilfoyle ... " 

Gilfoyle leaned in.

"When you brought home that Kevin guy from the coffee shop," Dinesh finally said, "I guess ..." he stopped.

"Say it," prompted Gilfoyle.

Dinesh didn't say anything.

"Come on, you'll feel better," said Gilfoyle, clapping him on the shoulder. "I'm not going to call you a pussy or any of that shit."

Dinesh looked down. "I was jealous," he said.

"I know. I meant you to be," said Gilfoyle.

"Why?" Dinesh demanded.

"Same reason anybody makes anybody jealous I guess," said Gilfoyle.

"What?"

"You told me," said Gilfoyle, voice beginning to drip with the bitterness, "I didn't have any friends. Not just, you know, any friends outside the house, any friends period. Which meant ... you weren't my friend."

"You said you didn't have any friends by choice," said Dinesh.

"Jesus," said Gilfoyle, "do I need to spell this out?"

Dinesh tilted his head.

"Fine," said Gilfoyle. "You hurt my feelings. I reacted by denying that I cared and then just generally being a petty jackass about the whole thing."

"I ... hurt your feelings?" Dinesh said in disbelief.

"Yes," said Gilfoyle. "I do have them, you know."

Dinesh just looked stunned for a few moments, then said, "I'm sorry. I can see how that would hurt. I'm used to thinking of you as, you know ... man of steel or iron man or tin man ... some kind of metal man ... or something ..."

"Fuck Metal Man."

"Yeah," said Dinesh suddenly, a half smile spreading across his face.

"You know, you're the only person who's ever liked me by accident," said Gilfoyle, and it felt terrifying to say these things out loud, but he couldn't stop himself anymore. "I know how to pretend to be someone else to get what I want. When I go see my parents, I'm the perfect mild mannered son. For the four weekends a year I see Tara, I'm the perfect considerate boyfriend. But you ... you knew I was a snarky, immature bastard from day one. And you liked me anyway. And I guess I always thought, you know, that you were like me. And maybe we could be bastards together. But then ... "

Dinesh pulled his left sleeve between two fingers. "Gilfoyle ..." he said. "I don't mind so much about the pranks, or the chain jokes. I'm no saint either. But ..." he said, his neck stooping.

Gilfoyle's hand made its way back to Dinesh's shoulder. "Yeah?" he said, but really, he knew. He could feel the waves of tension dripping down Dinesh's shoulders. The faint hope and the learned caution. The animal desperation and the just as animal fear. Dinesh wanted something (comfort, empathy, remorse, reassurance, kindness, warmth, companionship), wanted it so much it hurt. But he was afraid to ask.

He didn't have to ask.

"Come here," said Gilfoyle, reinforcing the words with his body.

"What?" said Dinesh. "Why?"

"You know why. Come here," he repeated more firmly. "This is years overdue."

Dinesh leaned in. 

And his arms felt better than anything Gilfoyle could have imagined, better than an orgy, better than a shot of Pappy Van Winkle, holding Dinesh close to his heart, a moment of shared repose. They crossed the three second mark, the five second mark, the 'hey dude, this is pretty gay right here' mark, all without flinching; some things are more important than following the rules.

"You're not alone," Gilfoyle told him. "Any time there's something on your mind, come tell me."

"You too," said Dinesh.

"Me too," said Gilfoyle.

"By the way," said Dinesh, breaking apart, "whatever happened with you and Tara?"

"You know, I think I'm going to break up with her," said Gilfoyle. "It's not worth the effort anymore."

Tara took it pretty well in the end.

"Yeah," she said the next evening, "I think it's for the best, babe. But we can still be friends, right?"

"Sure," said Gilfoyle. "Friends are good."


End file.
